CANADIAN ACADEMY. Canadian Academy, a Baptist coeducational institution at Canadian, was established in 1901 and opened in 1903, in a building constructed and equipped in 1900 for the use of the local school system. It opened with a faculty of four and a student body of twenty-seven. The second year the faculty numbered seven and the student enrollment 117. Over the next few years a dining hall and two dormitories were added. The school was divided into departments of literature and composition, music, education, and physical culture. A highlight of the academy's brief history came in the spring of 1907, when the twelve-member science class traveled to dig and examine artifacts on the recently discovered, buried Indian-city site south of Perryton in Ochiltree County. Because it was sustained wholly by contributions, fees, and tuition, Canadian Academy could not compete with tax-supported schools when the latter began to offer more educational opportunities. The academy was closed in 1913. Presidents of the school were J. F. McDonald, O. N. McBride, and R. E. L. Farmer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A History of Hemphill County (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1977). F. Stanley [Stanley F. L. Crocchiola], The Canadian, Texas, Story (Nazareth, Texas, 1975). F. Stanley [Stanley F. L. Crocchiola], Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953). Winifred Morris Stoker, History of Canadian Academy (MS, Canadian Public Library, Canadian, Texas). Winifred Morris Stoker, A Pictorial History of Early Higher Education in the Texas Panhandle (Canyon: West Texas State University, 1976).

J. W. Sanders